Slowly eradicating Microsoft
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A funny thought struck me the other day. It's been around a year since I got the Mac, but slowly I've been getting rid of everything Microsoft around me. Here's some examples.
- A Windows VM, only for Domino Designer, Admin and Visio (I know I could use Omnigraffle, but I don't have a license for that)
The interesting part is that this really isn't by design. I certainly didn't go out to replace everything! I've simply done this just by using the best tool available to me. I suppose part of this has been the interest in learning, as I didn't know anything about Linux or OS X when I started. But the main reason for this slow migration has just been to make my life easier.
I no longer have to wait 3 or 4 minutes for a Windows laptop to resume from sleep. I no longer have to worry about guests using our WiFi network and dropping a trojan on our servers. Music streams around the house now, far easier than it has ever done before*. My laptop backs itself up whenever I'm at home seamlessly. It all pretty much 'just works'.
Of course, I still get questions from clients about my laptop. "Oh, that's a very nice PC - what is it?", "How do you get on using a Mac for work?", "Why don't you use a PC?" But all of these are easy to answer. Of course, nothing is ever perfect - but I am truely far happier with our own IT than I have been for a long time. There are still a few things that are staying MS for now. My phone, for instance, is still far more capable than a Blackberry or an iPhone at present. But in general, it's all going well. And if I was starting from scratch - I know where I'd look.
So, what am I trying to say? This (long) post really isn't designed to be a dig at any company. I just find it interesting to think about. Joe Litton has been trying to move everything to Linux. Paul, Bill, Rob and Gab have all moved to Macbooks as well in the last year or so. Linux based PC's are popping up all over the market. It seems that we've finally reached the point where people require an application, not an OS. That has to be a good thing.
*Ask Kitty about my abortive attempt to create a Home Theatre PC, based on Windows. Bluntly, it was very expensive, hugely time consuming and a bit crap in the end. The Apple TV blows it away, even though it doesn't do 1/2 of the features.
Bookmark :
A funny thought struck me the other day. It's been around a year since I got the Mac, but slowly I've been getting rid of everything Microsoft around me. Here's some examples.
- My main work PC - is now a Macbook Pro. I run the 8.5 beta client full time as my personal client. This is left running:
- A Windows VM, only for Domino Designer, Admin and Visio (I know I could use Omnigraffle, but I don't have a license for that)
- My Thinkpad - which I still use for running VM's - is now running Ubuntu and VMWare Workstation. Hugely faster than the Windows image that it shipped with.
- The home server - has been a Mac Mini for a while - is now running Domino in an OpenSuse VM instead of Windows Server. Which gave me some huge performance gains!
- The home NAS - used to be a Terastation running a SMB share. It's shortly to become a shared volume off the Mac Mini, primarily because of better character set support and support for Time Machine etc.
- Our servers - which used to be Windows based, are now running Ubuntu, VMWare server and a variety of server images. And I mean to migrate these all to Linux too at some point.
The interesting part is that this really isn't by design. I certainly didn't go out to replace everything! I've simply done this just by using the best tool available to me. I suppose part of this has been the interest in learning, as I didn't know anything about Linux or OS X when I started. But the main reason for this slow migration has just been to make my life easier.
I no longer have to wait 3 or 4 minutes for a Windows laptop to resume from sleep. I no longer have to worry about guests using our WiFi network and dropping a trojan on our servers. Music streams around the house now, far easier than it has ever done before*. My laptop backs itself up whenever I'm at home seamlessly. It all pretty much 'just works'.
Of course, I still get questions from clients about my laptop. "Oh, that's a very nice PC - what is it?", "How do you get on using a Mac for work?", "Why don't you use a PC?" But all of these are easy to answer. Of course, nothing is ever perfect - but I am truely far happier with our own IT than I have been for a long time. There are still a few things that are staying MS for now. My phone, for instance, is still far more capable than a Blackberry or an iPhone at present. But in general, it's all going well. And if I was starting from scratch - I know where I'd look.
So, what am I trying to say? This (long) post really isn't designed to be a dig at any company. I just find it interesting to think about. Joe Litton has been trying to move everything to Linux. Paul, Bill, Rob and Gab have all moved to Macbooks as well in the last year or so. Linux based PC's are popping up all over the market. It seems that we've finally reached the point where people require an application, not an OS. That has to be a good thing.
*Ask Kitty about my abortive attempt to create a Home Theatre PC, based on Windows. Bluntly, it was very expensive, hugely time consuming and a bit crap in the end. The Apple TV blows it away, even though it doesn't do 1/2 of the features.
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Comments
THAT is precisely the thought that has driven me to explore open source for the OS. I want software vendors (including Microsoft) to be able to reap a fair profit for good products. But there must be variety and competition. And while I have reinstalled Windows on my home laptop (for now), I am absolutely still experimenting with Ubuntu.
I applaud IBM and other vendors who are making their products available to operating systems other than just Windows, as without such commitment from vendors, it is not possible to have choice of OS.
Posted by Joe Litton At 15:10:34 On 18/07/2008 | - Website - |